Media

November 30, 2010

For a medium that can treat just about anything as “Breaking News” it makes sense not to waste a perfectly primed up controversy about itself. So it is just as well that NDTV anchor Barkha Dutt, who has now officially been described as India’s Katie Couric, has decided to subject herself to a harrowing ordeal of being questioned by four independent journalists. Now if that is not great television what is?

If I had known this earlier I would have suggested the following opening: “Tonight (drumrolls getting progressively louder and ominous with the ‘Jaws’ score of an impending shark attack also playing along)….I am the breaking news. Tonight…. a special on how news is broken and fixed.”

The best way to deal with a crisis, especially one that involves professional ethics, is to abusrdify it. (Absurdify is not a word but then television news is not news. Remember you read it here first.) It would help if each of the four peers would be armed with replicas of weapons used by the Roman gladiators. In the interest of aesthetics though they should not be allowed to dress up as gladiators because show me a journalist who is toned and I would show you a pretender. Flab is a requirement in the profession.

I am willing to give Dutt the benefit of the doubt that she does really want to engage in a genuine debate about the raging controversy over whether she and other journalists, who ended up on wiretaps intended to for lobbyist Niira Radia, crossed the ethical line. Equally, I cannot help but think that somewhere along the line NDTV bosses may have reasoned that a show like this could be a ratings bonanza if handled with a degree of marketing savvy.

The picture would be complete if the show is sponsored by Tata who as we all know never engages in questionable business practices (as far as I can see which is not that far considering I sit in my basement and write this blog.)

June 24, 2009

My friend and colleague Tarun Basu’s dream of opening a
world-class media institute in India has come true. This comes at a time when
the print media around the globe is facing an existential crisis in the face of
uncertainties over which delivery model will prevail—the printed paper or the online
paper.

I received this press release from the International Center
for Journalists (ICFJ).

“The International Center for Journalists (ICFJ) has
announced the launch of the International Media Institute of India (IMII) in
New Delhi, a non-profit educational center that will marry cutting-edge,
hands-on journalism instruction with the highest international standards.

The institute will be run by ICFJ in collaboration with leading
Indian editors, who conceived the idea for the school when they experienced
difficulty in finding skilled entry-level journalists to hire. ICFJ’s partner
is the Society for Policy Studies (SPS), a non-profit Indian think tank that
promotes debate on contemporary issues among journalists and concerned citizens
and encourages quality journalism training.

Expected to open this fall, the one-year postgraduate
program will give entry-level journalists the professional and technical
expertise to work across media platforms. The classroom environment will mimic
a newsroom with students constantly reporting and publishing stories. Top-tier
international and Indian faculty will instruct the students on how to produce
quality journalism for print, interactive and broadcast outlets. The graduates
of the program will be the emerging leaders in media and communications.

The institute is funded by the John S. and James L. Knight
Foundation and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. The Graduate
School of Journalism of the City University of New York (CUNY) is providing
curriculum support.

The school is opening at a pivotal time. Indian media are
experiencing unprecedented growth as the economy goes global and literacy rates
rise. This has created a pressing need for journalists who can produce reliable
coverage of a country that has become a major global player.”

The school is indeed opening at a crucial time in India. The
country’s print and broadcast media has seen a perceptible decline in the
quality of professional journalists. The 24-news cycle that television news has
to follow has meant considerable lowering of entry barriers into this great
profession. Any imbecile with a microphone and a camcorder can masquerade as a
broadcast journalist these days. Television crews are everywhere in Delhi and
elsewhere waiting for just about anything resembling a human being coming out
of anything resembling a door to thrust their microphones into.

IMII appears to have what it takes to equip future
journalists with the skills and temperament so necessary to become a serious
journalist. I am sure those who have devised the curriculum know the importance
of reading for any aspiring journalists. I would encourage the school’s
director David Bloss and dean Sunil Saxena to drill into their students’ heads
that there is no alternative to reading, none whatsoever, if they want to
become journalists.

April 13, 2009

After doing that painfully wannabe suggestive commercial for
Hardee’s, Padma Lakshmi’s natural trajectory was to drop whatever remained on
her body. She has done it for the Allure magazine. We now see what Salman
Rushdie saw.

I have always found nudity quite banal. On a relative scale
female nudity is better than male nudity. But that is not really saying much
because the male of the species is so manifestly functional that even a barstool can
look good in comparison. Padma Lakshmi has endowments which qualify as
attractive but for some reason seeing her left me cold. There is a
delightfully crass expression in Hindi to describe that response. It is KLPD.
In the interest of not making this post less sophisticated than it already is I would not dwell on what it
means. Those who know it will understand. And those who don’t can console themselves with whatever it is that they console themselves with.

Here is a brief chat that the ‘Top Chef’ host and cook book
author had with Allure.

ALLURE: What did you do to prepare for the shoot?

PADMA LAKSHMI: "I exercised a little bit extra, but I
actually think I look better when I have a little bit of weight on—my breasts
are fuller, and I'm curvier than when I'm at my thinnest."

ALLURE: Are you confident about your body?

PL: "Yes; I like the way I look. I think I look better
now than I did in my 20s, because I'm more confident about my body—and I don't
want to look like anyone but myself."

ALLURE: Do you sleep naked?

PL: "I tend to sleep in the nude. I'm an innately
tactile person and a very sensual-leaning woman. You have to use the word
'leaning' or it sounds like I'm boasting! When I'm in my own private space, I
do spend time with very little on."

April 07, 2009

Throwing shoes during news conferences is an extreme form of
editorializing that which professional reporters must refrain from, especially
those who are a poor shot.

Jarnail Singh, a reporter working for the leading Hindi
newspaper Dainik Jagran, chose to settle his disagreement with India’s Home
Minister P. Chidambaram by hurling his sneaker at him. Standing barely five
feet away from the minister, Singh still missed his target. While Singh’s
question over those involved in the 1984 Sikh riots was right on target, his
shoe was not. Perhaps he will practice some more at a nearby shoe-throwing
range.

On a more serious note, the line dividing professional
journalism and political activism is not discernible but any journalist worth
his or her salt would know when they cross it. Muntader al-Zaidi, the Iraqi
journalist who in a sense pioneered this practice of real time editorializing by
hurling not one but both his shoes at former U.S. President George W. Bush, clearly
crossed this line. And so did Jarnail Singh.

While journalists have frequently blurred this line in the
past as well, there is something particularly galling about throwing shoes. In
the Asian cultural context, throwing shoes is more to humiliate the than to hurt.
However, a sneaker of the kind that Singh threw or the shoes that al-Zaidi did
could be potentially dangerous projectiles. Had the shoe hit Chidambaram, there
could have been a case of assault made against the journalist.

In the age of snap judgment and instant punditry on
television, old-fashioned, professionally detached reporting may be losing
currency in India and elsewhere. However, it is needed more than ever before at
a time when the world has become so fractious. Throwing shoes is an act of
rabble that may have a strong YouTube audience but it does not really help
resolve problems as serious as bringing those guilty in the massacre of nearly
3,000 Sikhs to justice. It is possible that in India’s ever rancorous democracy
such a form of protest could help focus on issues which are sought to be
consigned to obscure corners of history. However, that still does not take away
questions over the professional conduct of a journalist. Something about the
incident betrays premeditation aimed at gaining attention. One could be wrong
about Singh’s motives but looking at the video and his subsequent comments the
act does not appear to be spontaneous.

Weeks before the country’s largest parliamentary election
yet, such incidents provide tremendous opportunity for political theater. An
irate and emotional journalist hurls a shoe at the country’s home minister. In
return the home minister forgives him in manufactured magnanimity. In the midst
of all this, the Shiromani Akali Dal has offered Singh Rs. 200,000 in reward
for his “courage and bravery.” It is bad enough that Singh crossed that line.
It would be even worse were he to accept that reward.

This may not be a trend yet but journalism schools around
the world, if there are still any left, should introduce a specific course in
shoe throwing. These journalism schools will have to invest in shoes of all
varieties and develop a precise science based on their weight, shape and
material. Trajectories will have to be studied based on the distance between
the shoe-throwing journalist and his or her target. There is a whole science of
aerodynamics waiting to be tapped on what material to be used in shoes so that they
do the job efficiently. Schools will need NASA engineers who are able to
calculate to the last inch where a probe would land. Too many shoes are missing
their targets. Of course, the Iraqi journalist, would have landed his shoe
right on target had it not been for the impressive reflexes of the man in
question.

April 04, 2009

One did not want to deprive a fellow journalist of some
glory. So I refrained for a couple of days from commenting on the exchange
between President Obama and Times Now correspondent Simrat Ghuman. It was not
for the young journalist to agree or disagree or approve or disapprove or
concur or contest when Obama paid compliments to India’s Prime Minister
Manmohan Singh.

It appears that Simrat was somewhat thrown off her game when
she was picked randomly from among hundreds of journalists, many of them quite
star struck, trying to attract Obama’s attention. That probably explains why
she felt compelled to say “I am really proud of him (Manmohan Singh).” There is
nothing wrong in being proud of someone in itself but for a professional
reporter it is necessary to maintain certain distance from everything that he
or she is reporting on.

Simrat’s subsequent comments to IANS that she was “walking
on air” after that encounter tells me somewhere along the line she had
eliminated that distance. Of course, there are are journalists who have done worse.

March 12, 2009

Raghubir Goyal is an anomaly in the White House press corps that
I have never understood. To be credentialed to perhaps the world’s most coveted
beat for decades without so much as producing a single worthwhile story for any
recognizable media outlet is one of the enduring mysteries of Washington.
Although I am not based in D.C., I have frequently traveled to the capital for
various assignments. None of my media friends has been able to crack the Goyal
mystery. Perhaps there is no mystery there at all.

The affable Goyal is a master of the softball and inane. In
the midst of a global nuclear crisis it should not be surprising if he asks the
White House press secretary about the hair gel he may have used that day. Of
course, I am exaggerating but you get my drift. One of Goyal’s specialties is
to convey the greetings of the people of India to the White House even though
no one in India may know him.

It seems Goyal’s ride at the White House may be coming to an
end, according to the Post.

February 21, 2009

Newsweek International editor Fareed Zakaria is the Barack
Obama of the US mainstream media. That reputation leads to gushing magazine
profiles of the 39-year-old Zakaria. The latest one is in the New York Magazine
by Marion Maneker who goes virtually orgasmic describing Zakaria thus: “Dimple-chinned,
with expressive eyebrows and a thick head of black hair, Fareed Zakaria could
easily be the Indian reincarnation of Cary Grant. Certainly his manner is just
as silky and unflappable.”

By the time you are through reading this article you get the
impression that other than not being able to come up with a Grand Unified
Theory and ending world poverty and hunger in about ten minutes there is
nothing that Zakaria has not accomplished. Zakaria himself happily obliges in
cementing that miraculously high-achieving image by saying this, “My friends
all say I’m going to be Secretary of State,” But I don’t see how that would be
much different from the job I have now.”

In the Zakaria world painted by Maneker voluptuous cover
girls give him “smoldering” looks. The article quotes a friend as saying, “There
is no one in that family (the Zakaria family) who is comfortable being ignored.”
With the looks of Cary Grant and the
intellect of Henry Kissinger and coming from a family not comfortable being
ignored it only helps that Zakaria has a Ph.D. in political science from
Harvard and another degree from Yale.

Both Zakaria and Obama are those new age, über cool exotic
men from whose palms unsuspecting media eats anything that resembles food. Obama
has already been canonized having become a bigger hero than Jesus for a large
number of Americans, according to a new survey. Zakaria is not too far from that
halo if such profiles are any indication.

Going by some of the media opinion it is only a matter of
time before either Obama or Zakaria would have resolved every crisis that faces
the planet.

February 16, 2009

The New York Times has published a less than flattering
article about Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim Helú , who is now a major
shareholder in the financially pressed newspaper. One can be mistaken into treating the piece
headlined ‘Carlos Slim Helú: The Reticent Media Baron’ as an example of the
newspaper’s editorial independence. The reality is a little more complex than
that.

“Going down in history as an evil monopolist who fleeced
Mexican consumers is not an image of himself that he likes, but it’s a true
image,” the paper quotes Denise Dresser, a Mexican political scientist as
saying. “The possibility that he would throw his weight around itself acts as a
gag,” she said.

I am baffled that a businessman whom the article projects in
such lurid light should have been allowed to buy a 14 percent stock in the
newspaper for $250 million. There is such manifest hypocrisy here. If Carlos
Slim Helú is everything that the article says he is, then the New York Times
owners should have thought several times before accepting his cash. The neatly partitioned
moral standards—one for business and the other for editorial do nothing to
minimize the inherent questionability of the Times decision to sup with the one
who could well be an “evil monopolist.”

One understands printed newspapers are facing possible
extinction and they have to wage a desperate struggle to not just survive but
stay relevant. But there are lines that they must not cross in order to do so.
Unlike any other enterprise the news media is governed by pretty tight and well
defined moral standards. After accepting $250 million from a businessman whose
dealings the Times is less than sanguine about the honorable thing to do would
have been to walk out of the deal. There is no use pretending to be editorially
independent even while being financially expedient.

February 08, 2009

It is embarrassing to see leading names of the Indian media
beseeching the government for a bailout. It is wrong and potentially dangerous.

All bailouts are conditional and for those in the media
asking for one ought to know that a return favour will be demanded at an
opportune time by the powers that be. One such opportune time could be India’s
parliamentary elections likely to be held in May.

Minister of State for Information and Broadcasting Anand
Sharma, an office which is anachronistic in itself, has said a stimulus package
for the media will be announced soon. By its very definition a stimulus package
means that the government will spend money in a variety of ways to help the
media offset the losses caused by the global financial meltdown. It could mean
tax breaks for media companies, subsidies on the newsprint, release of more
government advertisements, cheaper capital and other indirect benefits. Call
them anything that catches your fancy, there is no way to avoid a direct
conflict of interest for any media company that would accept such a bailout.

In the 1970s and 1980s thousands of “journalists” made their
living by uncritically transcribing handouts or press releases issued by
governments, municipalities, police and fire departments and other official
agencies. It was then contemptuously known as handout journalism. In 2009 the
media is in serious danger of inventing bailout journalism.

From all available evidence Anand Sharma is a sensible politician
and the media delegation that reached out to him are seasoned professionals.
There is nothing intrinsically wrong with the two sharing ideas to battle the
meltdown. It, however, acquires a whole new dimension when their interaction
takes the shape of an officially mandated stimulus package. Imagine that six
months after such a package has been put into effect Sharma finds himself in a
situation of confrontation with one or all of those who had written to him for
a bailout.

Would they find it awkward to tell him off were he to ask
them to go slow on a certain story? Or would they be so professional that they
would separate one from the other and do the highest ideals of journalism require
them to do? Admittedly, this is a painfully difficult debate that always runs
the risk of falling into absolutist or puritanical slots. But that is exactly
the point of it all. Unlike any other industry seeking a bailout, the media is
uniquely fettered to its core independence. Any journalist worth his or her
salt knows that the main professional hazard in it is potentially mortal.

It is possible that I am taking a foolishly impractical
position on a situation that involves livelihoods of tens of thousands of
people. The current global crisis is unprecedented in the lifetime of most
people in the world. It will require some dilution in moral absolutism by
everyone, including possibly the media. But an unequivocal voice from some
corner of one’s mind says seeking a government bailout is an unmitigated
disaster. What good are principles if they do not survive the most difficult
test?

January 14, 2009

Here is something plumbers of the world, one in particular
who is stroking his 15 minutes of fame to death by turning a journalist, should
pay attention to.

Lasantha Wickramatunga knew that he might have to pay for
his journalistic independence with his own life. And he had to. But before he
was shot dead by unidentified gunmen on his way to his office at the Sunday
Leader newspaper in Colombo, Sri Lanka last Thursday he had written what can
only be described as his terminal essay. It was published on the day of his
funeral under the portentous headline “And then they came for me.”

Lasantha’s assassination is causing a great deal of
disruption in the island nation already disrupted by over two and a half decades
of relentlessly bloody Tamil insurgency in the north east. At a time when Sri
Lanka’s President Mahinda Rajapaksa is locked in a fight to the finish with the
Tamil Tigers separatist guerillas, Lasantha, who opposed that action, was doing
something that all good newspapers do—exposing corruption.

In his final signed editorial Lasantha wrote, “Neither
should our distaste for the war be interpreted to mean that we support the Tigers.
The LTTE are among the most ruthless and bloodthirsty organisations ever to
have infested the planet. There is no gainsaying that it must be eradicated.
But to do so by violating the rights of Tamil citizens, bombing and shooting
them mercilessly, is not only wrong but shames the Sinhalese, whose claim to be
custodians of the dhamma is forever called into question by this savagery, much
of which is unknown to the public because of censorship.

“What is more, a military occupation of the country's north
and east will require the Tamil people of those regions to live eternally as
second-class citizens, deprived of all self respect. Do not imagine that you
can placate them by showering "development" and
"reconstruction" on them in the post-war era. The wounds of war will
scar them forever, and you will also have an even more bitter and hateful
Diaspora to contend with. A problem amenable to a political solution will thus
become a festering wound that will yield strife for all eternity. If I seem
angry and frustrated, it is only because most of my countrymen - and all of the
government - cannot see this writing so plainly on the wall.

“It is well known that I was on two occasions brutally
assaulted, while on another my house was sprayed with machine-gun fire. Despite
the government's sanctimonious assurances, there was never a serious police
inquiry into the perpetrators of these attacks, and the attackers were never
apprehended. In all these cases, I have reason to believe the attacks were
inspired by the government. When finally I am killed, it will be the government
that kills me.”

The death of the 52-year-old lawyer turned journalist
appears to have affected Sri Lankansin
Colombo and elsewhere deeply. In a country which has seen tens of thousands of
extremely violent deaths, a single fatality seems unlikely to shake up things. Going
by the popular response to the killing things might be different this time.

At its highest journalism has always been among the noblest
of professions, a truth that has been lost in the cyber cacophony. But then had
it not been for the same Internet Lasantha’s death would not have resonated
worldwide the way it has.